Nevada May Require You To Ask Waiter For Water: Here’s Why It’s Dumb.
Many of life’s simple pleasures are meddled with by bureaucracy. Paper straws, for instance. Who asked for those? Well if Assemblywoman Heidi Kasama (R) of Las Vegas has her way, you’ll be asking for both a real straw, and the water to put it in.
Assembly Bill 186 was brought to the Nevada State Legislature this week. The bill would ban restaurants from “automatically” pouring you a glass of water. Instead, you will have to look at the waiter or waitress, parched and dying of thirst. With your last dry, crusty breath, you’ll barely eek out the request: “May I… please… have a glass… of water?”
OK we kid, but truly, this is how it’d go should it become law:
“A food establishment may not provide drinking water to a customer unless the customer requests drinking water.”
We know the Southern Nevada water issue is bad… but really?!
In a quote provided to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Assemblywoman Kasama says “Particularly in the drought situation we’re in, I think everyone can just do a small part.”
There’s just one small problem… drinking water is not why we are in a drought. Ask the SNWA and Las Vegas Valley Water District.
In Southern Nevada, practically every drop of water that reaches a drain will head to a treatment facility, be cleaned, sent back to Lake Mead for a credit, and then returned to our faucet. There is a reason Ryan Reaves was not slapping glasses of water out of people’s hands. It’s irrigation and evaporation that causes the biggest loss of water. Your lawn. Your pool. Washing your car in the street.
If you drink that water, you’ll eventually go to the bathroom and give the water back. If you don’t, it’ll likely go to a drain and the lake gets the water back too. To suggest a glass of water poured at a restaurant is contributing to the drought is a general misunderstanding of how water works in the valley.
So drink up, Las Vegas! Get your guzzle on, Henderson! North Las Vegas, let that water pour! Our water woes are serious, but you can get a glass of water with your food without any guilt. Just make sure if you “pour a little out for your homies you lost along the way,” you do it in a drain.
